5 Things to Do before Building an ecommerce shopping cart
Published on 29 July 13
Tracy1
The process of building an e-commerce shopping cart starts much before you actually begin the process of development. Let’s just stay that the process begins in your mind, before you begin breathing life into your shopping cart.
Let’s take a look at five things that you must do before you actually start building your e-commerce cart.
1. Understanding the Products Sold
Make sure you are well aware of the products sold on the site. The reason why you must know about these products is to understand their significance and the way the must be represented on the e-commerce website. You must also choose the right theme for your site based on the products that are being sold on it. Your e-commerce site must be product centric and user oriented. It must be a showcase for your products and such a website can only be built if you are able to understand its products and freeze on a theme that gels very well with the products being sold on the site.
2. Getting an Idea of the Target Audience
You must also get a fair idea of who you are designing the e-commerce site for, with respect to its target audience. It’s important to know about the interests, preferences and expectations of the people who are the website will target. If your website is able to meet user expectations, there is a good chance that it will succeed. This is really important because different target audiences have different needs. So, if your website is catering to a younger audience, they will expect it to have certain features while an older audience will have their own preferences as far as the features and functionality of the site is concerned. So knowing your target audience is as important as building a website for them.
3. Getting an Idea of the Competition
Think of your ecommerce website as a participant in a race, where all your competitors are ecommerce websites as well. Wouldn’t knowing more about your competition help you in some form or other to win the race? This is why getting a clear idea about your competition is so important. What’s more, this knowledge also helps you identify their strengths and weaknesses. Strengths include what these sites are doing right and weaknesses include where they are going wrong. You must get inspired from their strengths and make sure that your website isn’t as weak as their sites.
4. Conceptualizing a Shopping Experience
Before you start off on building an e-commerce shopping cart, think about the experience you want to offer shoppers. A shopping cart must offer access to its products in the quickest and most convenient way possible and at the same time must persuade a user to buy the product. This is why you need to plan your website’s shopping experience much before you actually start designing and developing it. To design a user friendly shopping cycle is a difficult process and therefore you will need to brainstorm it with all the stakeholders before you actually begin design and development.
5. Identifying the Risks
Each and every project has associated risks and therefore these risks must be identified and solution found for the same before you begin developing the project. This ensures that project development takes place at a quick pace and even if problems emerge, they are taken care of quickly without wasting precious time.
Wrapping it up
By thinking of these things before you start custom e-commerce development, you are actually thinking ahead and making sure that your cart is developed the way it is supposed to be developed, with an eye on the profits. More importantly, you will also make sure that you won’t take any wrong step that will affect the profitability of your shopping cart.
Let’s take a look at five things that you must do before you actually start building your e-commerce cart.
1. Understanding the Products Sold
Make sure you are well aware of the products sold on the site. The reason why you must know about these products is to understand their significance and the way the must be represented on the e-commerce website. You must also choose the right theme for your site based on the products that are being sold on it. Your e-commerce site must be product centric and user oriented. It must be a showcase for your products and such a website can only be built if you are able to understand its products and freeze on a theme that gels very well with the products being sold on the site.
2. Getting an Idea of the Target Audience
You must also get a fair idea of who you are designing the e-commerce site for, with respect to its target audience. It’s important to know about the interests, preferences and expectations of the people who are the website will target. If your website is able to meet user expectations, there is a good chance that it will succeed. This is really important because different target audiences have different needs. So, if your website is catering to a younger audience, they will expect it to have certain features while an older audience will have their own preferences as far as the features and functionality of the site is concerned. So knowing your target audience is as important as building a website for them.
3. Getting an Idea of the Competition
Think of your ecommerce website as a participant in a race, where all your competitors are ecommerce websites as well. Wouldn’t knowing more about your competition help you in some form or other to win the race? This is why getting a clear idea about your competition is so important. What’s more, this knowledge also helps you identify their strengths and weaknesses. Strengths include what these sites are doing right and weaknesses include where they are going wrong. You must get inspired from their strengths and make sure that your website isn’t as weak as their sites.
4. Conceptualizing a Shopping Experience
Before you start off on building an e-commerce shopping cart, think about the experience you want to offer shoppers. A shopping cart must offer access to its products in the quickest and most convenient way possible and at the same time must persuade a user to buy the product. This is why you need to plan your website’s shopping experience much before you actually start designing and developing it. To design a user friendly shopping cycle is a difficult process and therefore you will need to brainstorm it with all the stakeholders before you actually begin design and development.
5. Identifying the Risks
Each and every project has associated risks and therefore these risks must be identified and solution found for the same before you begin developing the project. This ensures that project development takes place at a quick pace and even if problems emerge, they are taken care of quickly without wasting precious time.
Wrapping it up
By thinking of these things before you start custom e-commerce development, you are actually thinking ahead and making sure that your cart is developed the way it is supposed to be developed, with an eye on the profits. More importantly, you will also make sure that you won’t take any wrong step that will affect the profitability of your shopping cart.
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Nice points raised, though I feel they're stil a bit too generic. These points are not only relevant for ecommerce websites but for every business setup as well. Just that in ecommerce, gaining customer's trust is comparatively difficult and I believe the biggest challenge faced.